


Breathe In, Breathe Out (Repeat)

by Carmarthen



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Bittersweet, Cooking, Destruction of Alderaan (Star Wars), Family, Gen, Healing, Holidays, Remembrance, Seasonal, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: After the Empire falls, Luke and Leia spend autumn on Chandrila.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Breathe In, Breathe Out (Repeat)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambiguously](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/gifts).



> Many thanks to Stripy for the beta.

A few days after Leia and Luke arrived at the cabin, the leaves on the trees around the mountain lake began to turn a rusty gold, and flocks of toothy blue and gray pteryxbirds descended on the clusters of vivid magenta berries that dotted the bushes edging the shoreline.

At first Luke had worried that the trees were sick--this was his first change of seasons on a temperate planet--but his concern had turned to wonder when Leia explained, as best she could from distant memories of girlhood science lessons, how some trees shed their leaves every year and slept the cold months away. She had not wanted to come here when Mon Mothma suggested it; it seemed frivolous and irresponsible when there was so much work to do (and perhaps, if she stopped moving after so long, she would simply vibrate apart from frustrated energy). But it was Chandrila, and all politics were put on hold before the autumn festival, so she could not argue without giving needless offense. And now, seeing Luke's wide-eyed awe at the changing leaves blurred by morning mists rising from the lake, and the way he smiled at the distant, mournful calls of migrating birds, the pause seemed like a better and better idea every day. Luke had been serious since Endor, and quiet, but here he seemed to recover some of his old exuberance, the Tatooine farmboy's delight at a wider galaxy.

The cabin itself belonged to Mothma's family, a cozy vacation home paneled inside with polished antique wroshyr wood from Kashyyyk and strewn with embroidered patchwork pillows made of scraps of vine-silk and velvet, remnants of worn-out ceremonial garb remade again into something beautiful and useful. For the first week, Leia found herself falling into long afternoon naps, despite her best efforts to read through the documents they would be discussing when the assorted parties of the nascent New Republic reconvened. In the short evenings, she and Luke walked by the lake, breathing the clean, crisp air; they sat and watched the waterbirds displaying their bright mating colors, leaning against each other in silence. Leia could not remember the last time she had nothing to do, or if there even was one.

"Is this like it was on Alderaan?" Luke asked once, as they sat on the deck in front of the cabin and ate roasted butterpods with their hands, like children on a camping trip.

There was the sharp stab of pain and guilt that always accompanied the thought of Alderaan, but that was no reason not to talk about it. Alderaan lived only in memory now, and only as long as that memory was shared. "Yes and no," Leia said. "The climate was similar, but the plants and animals were all different, the colors and the scents." She closed her eyes, remembering. "Here the colors are muted. Autumn at home was...so bright it was almost overwhelming, all orange and scarlet. It rained almost every day, and the wet leaves smelled like spices. We didn't have a single autumn festival like here, but it was a season for parties—everyone gathering together in the warmth to share the harvest and exchange gifts while the rain fell outside." She had always liked falling asleep to the sound of autumn rain on the roofs of the palace, knowing she was warm and dry inside.

"It sounds beautiful." Luke's voice was soft, almost wistful, and Leia suddenly wished he had been there with her, back before the war, in simpler times. He would have liked the painting parties, she thought, imagining him smiling with paint smeared on his hands, simply playing with color for the joy of it. 

"It was. It is.” She thought of the holo Evaan had sent her a few days earlier from Takodana; Evaan had been holding up a scarf printed with a swirl of large round leaves, a smudge of paint on her nose and a smile on her face. _Alderaan yet lives,_ she'd said. _Joyous autumn, my queen._ Leia had swallowed back a lump in her throat, even though she had long ago realized she could never become the queen she'd been raised to be, the queen who put Alderaan first above all, even if that was what some of the survivors wanted. "Tomorrow I'll try to make some of the traditional foods, if we can find the ingredients in the village,” she said to Luke. "We can have our own autumn party here, just us."

* * *

In a little imported food shop in the village further down the pass, they bought preserved jogan fruit, dried kardepods and synnabark, and a little citrus fruit with a thin, pale yellow rind that Leia didn't recognize but which the old Rodian behind the counter said would do as a substitute for Alderaanian lemons. Luke browsed the shelves with the same cheerful delight he had shown by the lake--true, he'd been off Tatooine some years, so it wasn't all new, but those years had held a lot of ration bars and mess hall grub. He added a jar of something gelatinous and violently pink to their purchase, but only smiled mysteriously and told Leia it would be a surprise when she asked what it was for.

Luke being _mysterious_ was new, too, and Leia wasn't sure how she felt about it.

There had been little time in the busy schedule of Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan for cooking, but holidays were different. Some of Leia's earliest memories were of her mother taking her down to the kitchens and showing her how to roll out dough or grate vegetables for some traditional dish; there, in the fragrant, floury rooms full of bustling servants and efficient droids, her regal mother had always deferred to another queen, the old woman who ran the kitchens. _Baking is a science,_ the head cook had told Leia, showing her where the measuring tools and scales. _A little change can be the difference between success or failure._

__

__

When had she last paused to observe one of Alderaan's traditions, tied so closely to the seasonal cycles of a place that had been destroyed? The ingredients she remembered, but not the measures. _A recipe is like a manual, Your Highness. At first you use it as a guide, but sometimes it's only a starting point._

As Imperial censorship disintegrated, the knowledge of the Alderaanian survivors, thousands of recipes and songs and oral histories from emigrant grandparents recorded by grandchildren who had never seen Alderaan's skies, had flooded the Holonet almost overnight. The recipe Leia found was not the same as the recipe the head cook at the palace in Aldera had used, but every cook had their own recipe for moon pastries. Tradition was like a song with variations through the years as each singer made it their own. Her mother had told her that when she was small, after a fight with one of her friends about the words to an old song turned to tears. How had it gone? It was one of the old tunes in the Cairokian mode, wistful as the soft cooing of the birds it was named for. She hummed, trying to remember the words.

_I tracked the prints of a golden-striped deer_  
_Amidst the towering trees_  
_Only in darkness does the light shine…_

“That’s pretty.” Luke's voice was soft. "What does it mean?"

It was an old song, layered in metaphor and allusion, so Leia had to think for a moment. "Some people thought it was just old nonsense, or some kind of coded mysticism.

“Arguing about such things is also traditional, I imagine." 

“Yes.” Leia found herself smiling at him; he understood. "I always thought--well, 'only in darkness does the light shine,' it's about how we don't know how bright the light is until it is set against the dark. Or perhaps we don't know how strong we are until we are tested. Here, this recipe should work. Come help me." She had to show Luke how to separate the egg whites from the pale green yolks, and then set him to whipping the whites into a stiff foam while she mixed the other ingredients. 

“Bossy,” he said, but with a smile and without any bite to it. “You know it’s just my hand that’s cybernetic, not my entire arm?”

"Just think of it as Jedi training."

"I thought this was supposed to be a _vacation,_ " muttered Luke, who she was pretty sure had been up at dawn every day so far to run or meditate or practice his lightsabre exercises.

The cabin didn't have the right kind of pan, but a squashed moon pastry was still a moon pastry, Leia told herself firmly. It didn’t have to be perfect. They were still golden as the harvest moon and fragrant with spices like the forest after the rain. Halfway through the frying, it began to rain, a soft, musical patter against the high-sloped slate roof of the cabin. Luke paused, with the faraway look he sometimes got before he said something mystical. “Do you feel it?”

Leia shook her head. She had joined him in meditation a few times, or rather tried to, but clearing her mind so completely had turned out to be something she could not accomplish through sheer will, and whatever Luke was sensing now was beyond her at present.

“Everything is breathing.” Luke’s hair had fallen in his eyes and he had flour on his nose. He looked like a short-order cook, but his voice was serene. Leia found herself taking a deep breath, her chest loosening and shoulders relaxing for what felt like the first time in years, breathing with her brother; breathing with the world.

* * *

In the end, the pastries didn't taste quite like Leia remembered them; maybe the jogan fruit was different, grown in Chandrilan soil, or maybe she had put in too much sugar or not enough citrus. But seeing Luke's delighted smile as he bit into one, she thought they tasted like the childhood they could have shared in another life.

"Joyous autumn, Luke," she said, reaching across the table to set her hand on his. His ungloved skin was warm and still floury from shaping the pastries. They were alive, the Empire had fallen, and she was not alone.

He turned his hand to lace their fingers together. "Joyous autumn, Leia."

**Author's Note:**

> Evaan Verlaine is an Alderaanian Rebel pilot from the _Star Wars: Princess Leia_ comic.
> 
> The lyrics to Leia’s song are loosely translated/Star Warsified from “[Kad Goddo](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/akvarium-kad-goddo-%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B4-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B4%D0%BE-lyrics.html)” by Akvarium, which is in turn based on the Welsh poem “[Cad Goddeu (Battle of the Trees)](https://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/t08.html).”
> 
> Moon pastries are basically space aebleskiver, for no reason other than their deliciousness and roundness. I have no idea if it’s actually possible to make them without a special pan; I guess they might just come out as extra tasty pancakes?


End file.
